Archive for SOS Concepts

Take hope progressive thinkers! The steady march of progress continues despite what seem like temporary setbacks. The ancient yogis realized that underlying the evolution of life on earth is the evolution of consciousness. It is an unstoppable force of nature and though it may seem painfully slow at times like these, it is accelerating in this Aquarian Age.

Less than 50 years ago inter-racial marriage was a CRIME! (See the excellent movie Loving, of the couple who fought that for us all!!) And marriage was just recently advanced to include the gender of your choice. Women’s issues have accelerated in light of exposure of abuse. I know, I know an abuser was elected and his people want to roll back rights, but Google the map that shows how people under 30 voted if you want to see the future. As older white men (like me) move off the planet, Aquarian youth will rule with vision and intuition replacing fear-based beliefs.

Don’t let the messy details mess with your head. See the evolutionary pressure at work to force adaptation and change. The info-wars are a prime example. 44% of people use Facebook as their primary news source. That means we are tending to hear and believe only what our friends say. If we read it, it must be true. Ironically, unrestricted access to all information has made us gullible to conspiracy theories and believing comfortable opinions over facts. This is awakening in us a need for more than opinion and information alone, a need for truth. Aren’t you hungry for it? A way to know solidly what is right, whom to trust, what is best for you, which action to take, confident decision-making.

It’s called sensitivity, clarity, neutral mind, intuition, working from the heart. And it is awakening in all of us in response to info overload and rapid change. The power within each of us to know what is right, will be our salvation. (Arrival is another current movie that speaks to this future. And the hero is a sensitive woman who uses that quality to do what anger can’t. Okay, so I live in L.A. and see our evolution in movies too!)

The future belongs to those who live from their hearts and thus are guided by universal truths rather than personal or geographic prejudice. So live on that evolutionary forefront by honoring and cultivating sensitivity, Meditatively engage your mind. Contemplatively use your feelings as “feelers” to sense your way through the chaos. Trust not the face and words of a person, but the state of their consciousness. Study not just the world out there, but your inner equipment through which you perceive reality.

GuruMeher Khalsa: A question as big as this necessarily has more than one answer. These answers will seem contradictory or even paradoxical. In fact, the two answers I offer below illuminate why there are as many answers to this question as there are hearts and minds.

First, there is no meaning of life!

Life simply is. It needs no further meaning. Galaxies, bacteria and humans come and go in a constant flow. It just is what it is. Meaningful and meaningless are just inventions of the mind.

Meaningless sounds empty, void and dark – and we are scared of the dark! Mind strives to fill the fearful void of meaninglessness with busy, important thoughts and grand purposes. We build philosophies and theories and keep mind occupied. We feel safer this way.

But a busy mind also produces stress. We have to match up to the purpose we created; it’s up to us to fulfill our purpose. This drives great and horrible human actions. There is another way. When we face our fear of emptiness and death, sit with it and let life be what it is, watch, participate and enjoy creation and our own experience of life’s unfolding… it becomes very relaxing to be part of something vast and timeless and go along for its ride. To experience a magnificent sunset is fulfilling without words or meaning. The practice of meditation, to observe life without interfering, is deeply satisfying and peace-giving. We can let life be as it is.

This is only one side of the answer. Because eventually we get bored and want to DO something, have a new experience. Ancient wisdom gave this as the reason the gods created worlds. With action, contentment is balanced with striving; completeness is complimented with expansion. We create reasons to get going, be busy and productive. This urge to create is seen everywhere in the universe.

This urge is the source of the second answer, which completes the first: You must find the meaning of YOUR life. There is no meaning to life other than what you give it. You must find it. And then, to be happy you must fulfill it.

There are as many purposes and paths as there are human hearts. Some will selfishly spend their life in pleasure of the senses, others in service to others. Pleasure, austerity, noble deeds, quiet simplicity, love, building great things…any and all work IF THEY ARE YOURS! What is the purpose that gives your life meaning?

No one can answer this question for you. We get clues about our path by liking or disliking the options and choices others make. Often we grab some purpose to survive, or something is pushed on us. If it is not our truth, our youthful enthusiasm fades with age. So how to know?

A few seem to just slip right in, to easily know their destiny and pursue it. Most find it by degree, like feeling “warmer or colder” about life as they walk through it. And that is the apparatus we have to find our way – how we FEEL about ourselves and our situation. Our meaning comes not from satisfying ideas, but from feelings of contentment. Not complacency, but a deep knowing that all is well. It’s not about achievements and final outcomes. It is a process – fully engaged in life, without lack and striving. Life flows, and so with us when we accept the life we find ourselves in and fulfill it by embracing it as it unfolds.

When we can hold these two truths in balance, no meaning and our unique meaning, we are fulfilled without stress or any sense of failure. We can let our individual purpose be a small cog in the great machinery of life. Life can be a play we can be part of without the burden of making it happen.

People have problems. Make your mental checklist. They range from small ones, like what to wear or eat, or how to get through your day’s tasks. To medium, like how to maintain health, desirable weight, get a better job and make money, who to date or how to get along with them. To BIG, like addiction, anxiety, illness, depression, past traumas, major loss. Do you also have global worries like war, the environment, political issues, disease and death? What are your problems?

And how do your problems compare? To a mother in Mosul, a starving Syrian child, a 17th century slave, a primitive hominoid alone in the wild? It is useful to put your modern first-world problems into perspective. The history of life on this planet has survived great hardship… and it has made us hardy! Plants, animals, humans have evolved and adapted over millions of years in symbiosis with hardship. The hardness of life developed in us the faculties to manage and handle problems.

We evolved with eyes because there is light. We evolved with fear because there is danger. We developed imagination because it helped us make something new and prepare for the future. We all have an elaborate and sophisticated sensory systemto detect and handle the problems life brings.

So if we survived the ice age, famine and tigers and we live in the safest and richest times in human history, Why Are We so Troubled? Did nature through millions of years of careful evolution not leave us with the ability to be happy and handle our modern problems? Of course it did.

Everyone has the ability to manage and resolve the situations that come to them and make the best of their life. Let’s call that their happiness. But we may not be fully using our ability, through mis-training and disuse, but the inborn equipment is there. Let’s work it.

First, let’s set the bar, our expected “normal” at the experience we prefer, some combination of security, connectedness, peacefulness and whatever constitutes your happiness and your definition of “I feel good”.

With this as baseline, you want to be on the alert for any invading “bad feelings”. Not that they ARE bad, but think of them as “fire alarms”, signals that something is disturbing your happiness. Does a fireman ignore the alarm and let the house burn? No, but we commonly disavow or acclimate to and ignore the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that call us to detect and correct interruptions to our preferred home base of positive experience. (You might want to re-read that sentence!)

You have a highly evolved sensitivity, with “alarms” that go off when your peace is disturbed. Here is a little user’s guide to making sure your problem-solving system is online.

I am on a plane, for 12 hours. So I watched Collateral Beauty on the seat back screen in front of me. I like a good, sensitive movie with meaning. My wife and I call them girl movies. We say that I go to them with her and she comes to guy movies with me, just to mess with the stereotypes, cause we enjoy a nice emotional range.

But today I welled up and cried so much, so often. I wondered if my neighbors could tell. I was feeling so much more sadness and joy from the story than I would expect. I love to feel, it was nice. I wondered why, and after, it was obvious.

I had just lead hundreds of person-hours of deep self-therapy in SOS workshops in Sweden. Now, these Swedes look pretty and sweet, but they come from the Vikings! And when they did their emotional healing, the roar from ages of Anger, the thrashing and wailing of decades of grief came out with such force I had never seen. Had I finally gotten in over my head with this Senses of the Soul business? Would they be alright?

With trust in the technology of Kundalini Yoga we were using, and the sacred space of it’s patron saint, Guru Ram Das, we kept up. And there were breakthroughs you can call miracles; though far from unexplainable, no less welcomed with gratitude. I was amazed how steady and strong my training prepared me to be able to hold strong that safe space while they cried, so they might not get lost in the feelings.

Many of the kriyas have strong movements, some rhythmic, some erratic with instructions to “go wild”. They say animals shake violently when safe after escaping near death in the claws of a predator to release the trauma-induced endorphins and stress to the nervous system. That’s what these Vikings were doing, class after class.

And that’s what my system was doing there on the plane. I had done my job, I heard all the horror stories that happen to so many people inside nice homes, and the scars carried, the lives disrupted. Now, assisted by the movie, it was time for me to feel and let go of the pain I must.have absorbed. Nice.

I asked the local teacher why, as it seems to me, that these daughters of ancient Shield Maidens were so…. well, loud. Do they have more abuse here than in the States, generational pain from history, or just more willingness to express it? Yet it’s a culture that keeps it pretty polite? I liked her answer: Sweden has a fairly long history now of peace and prosperity, at least in the society at large. Perhaps the psyche feels it is safe enough to shake it out now. Add to that the circumstances: ashram, the teachings, the guidance.

Is the war over in your life? First we have to get ourselves out of the jaws of threatening situations – as much as we can. The rest of our protection in this wild world must be fortified from within, the inner work, the regular practice. With these conditions, trauma CAN be released. This is self-therapy, the ability of everyone.

I am claiming that you, everyone, can solve their problems, or at very least be at peace by way of the following method:

When anything is bothering you (you feel bad), ask and answer:

What am I feeling?

Why am I feeling this way?

What do I need to feel better?

And then act on this information.

If any step is incomplete, the discomfort persists. I invite anyone to test it out and prove it wrong!

But there is a twist, rather a skill needed to fulfill this simple solution. The skill involves where the answers come from. Resolution of issues mundane to existential comes from a place deeper and truer than short-term facts. It comes not from the mind, which records and repeats what you have been taught. Yes it can create, compute and invent, amazing talents all, but still is limited by programmed prejudice, by trauma, by strong emotions. What is this truer source of answers?

You must find your own name for it, because it comes to people in different ways. Following the heart, intuition, gut instinct, the still small voice, voice of God, your angels, revelation, the “Aha!” moment, deep listening. It may come visually, in words, in a feeling or simply knowing without words.

However it comes to you, it IS available to all; it is part of your total sensory system which evolved over millions of years to deal with life and take care of yourself. This wisdom is always available when we get a break, however brief, from the constant chatter of the know-it-all mind. The skill to get our happiness-producing answers depends on the ability to quiet the mind. Thus we can truly listen and learn what we don’t yet know, rather than repeat what is already known – and may not be our truth.

So before the above questions are asked, one must prepare. The old way was to make a sacrifice or donation to the answer-knowing person. We now that that person is within yourself. So how do you prepare to meet that great source of wisdom? I call it Soul. By fasting, in nature, by drugs? I have found breath, Kriya and meditation to be quick and most effective. Even so, it is a re-training in how to use the mind that takes some time. I hope you will take the time to train your mind to listen to your heart so you can be happy.

If you want to try some simple practices to quiet your mind, try this breath practice for intuition. It is one of 52 exercises in my audiobook.

Here’s a little lite brain science-cum-yogic-knowledge to help you use your problem-solving, happiness-reaching equipment.

The part of your brain that makes you human is:

The cortex, includes the prefrontal cortex, cingulate and insula. These regions handle abstract reasoning and concepts, values, planning and the executive functions of organization, self-monitoring and impulse control.

– Rick Hanson, Buddha’s Brain.

This is the crowning achievement of evolution. It makes you the king/queen of the beasts. It calculates, organizes, designs, invents, and can imagine the future and distant dreams. When you think intensely, it is all “lit up” with activity. You are so smart, really!

These same skills can also fantasize and create its/your own reality. Wanted relationships are ended on assumptions and fears or, worse, clues are missed and positive thinking/denial leaves us open to betrayal. Suicide is an extreme example. All life in the Universe seeks to survive, yet a mind is convinced there is no use to it all, can’t see any positive way out. And when looking for answers to personal/ human issues as opposed to logistical/ logical tasks, the mind can default to old and false beliefs. So it needs assistance.

Another domain of the brain developed much earlier in evolutionary history is the limbic system.

The limbic system includes the amygdala, hippocampus and basal ganglia. It’s basically Grand Central Station for emotion.

– Rick Hanson, Buddha’s Brain.

If the prefrontal cortex makes us human and is about thoughts, the older brain is our animal nature (and is shared with our animal ancestors) and is all about feelings. This gives us rich information about our inner and outer world, AND HOW WE FEEL ABOUT IT ALL. The down side here is when it takes control, and we lose control of ourselves, our words and actions.

The prefrontal cortex is brilliant, can repress emotion and lose touch with reality. Limbic system is instinctively able to be alert and avoid harm but can react, can overtake you with emotion. They are made to work together! When they do, the limbic system brings you real-time information about harm and safety, what you need, how you are doing relative to your environment while the prefrontal cortex can modulate it’s impulsiveness and guide you to more subtle and modern-life appropriate responses to those emotions.

This is the underlying mechanics of Senses of the Soul, of a mindful use of emotions. Yoga, and, more specifically, meditation are scientifically proven to heighten activity in the prefrontal cortex, making you more aware, present, clear. In that state we can voluntarily use memories to invite emotion to arise (activating the limbic system). When both are in dialogue, instinct keeps you from losing touch mentally and intellect tames the beast. You can harness emotion for what it knows to be deeply, personally and intimately true about yourself and what you need to be okay, and translate that raw data into useable information and action to take care of yourself.

All of us cool Yoga people say we have a Body, Mind and Spirit. But how do you know? Like radio telescopes pointed into space waiting for a sign of life out there, how do you pick up messages from your soul? What is the receptor? And what is the language? Words, images? Or would you taste, smell or feel soul? Feel, yes, but not with the fingers.

We perceive the subtle sensations of soul in a great variety of ways. Visions and voices are the most common ways that people try to articulate their experience of spirit. But emotions play a key role. They are like the invisible electro-magnetic waves that travel through space to earth. Emotions carry subtle but data-rich information between people and in between the Body-Mind-Spirit systems.

Body talks to mind after a good meal and your food-seeking thoughts are satisfied. Mind can talk to body to relax muscle and even manage pain.

But without the feeling of fulfillment we may overeat when belly is in pain and mind is saying “stop”. Sex without love feels empty and eventually lonely. These emotions are full of information the body cannot know on its own. But the emotional courier registers an empty sensation in the chest tingling in the solar plexus when something is missing that doesn’t meet the eye. Emotional Couriers are more easliy received in the body and mind; we pay more attention to those two aspects of ourselves.

The most important role Emotional Couriers play is from Soul to Body/Mind and back. Like radio waves from the invisible to the tangible, from space to earth, they help us navigate the crowded and confusing street from a vast mountaintop view. If we learn to listen to our emotional messengers, they gnaw at our stomach when we’re about to be cheated, they make our mind race when danger is coming yet there is no evidence, they make our face hot when we are being rejected or ridiculed. They also “fill our hearts” when beauty inspires, when acts of courage give hope. They are the unique language by which we undoubtedly know the indescribable “feeling” of infinity.

So, it is not coincidence that both Soul and Emotion are currently the least understood realms of human life. Both are invisible, subtle, mysterious, misunderstood, disbelieved and even rejected and reviled.

Just so, emotions are a point of entry into awareness and familiarity, eventual acceptance as reality of the Spirit. Being more obvious and tangible, more scientifically explainable makes Emotions more approachable. And the growing talk and study of Emotions in society will result in more awareness and facility using and interpreting them. When the lines of communication are open, when we trust these Emotional Couriers to help us understand our physical reality, the bigger-picture wisdom from soul will get through more often.

Want to be “spiritual”? Want to hear from Soul (or debunk the notion)? Want to open up to the Infinite? Get your telescopic receivers to work. Feeling and dealing with the difficult emotions, getting to know what they know, what they are saying you need. This is a point of entry and connection, You may be digging through unresolved, very earthy issues for some time but there is much more out there. Dust off your mothballed Emotions and start getting those messages. Emotional Couriers will help you to know your Soul – by direct experience!

Use and Misuse of Emotions: Address, Express, or RepressMost of the trouble and bad reputation of emotions comes from improper use. The two main forms of misuse are opposites: to Express and Repress.

Expression means “to come out” and implies here that the emotion is in charge. It takes control of your words and actions; IT expresses itself through you, while the real you is lost. You react instinctively and instantly with no filter. Desire is acted upon no matter what the consequences. You lash out at those you love, pushing them further away. Fear has you run and hide from the opportunities you find. This automatic behavior evolved with your animal nature to survive by immediate action. When you believe survival is at stake, you don’t think. You are irrational, beyond reason, out of touch with any reality beyond attack or escape now. Using the unprocessed information of the emotions as a direct basis for action is like using the raw data in an experiment as a final conclusion.

The information brought to you by emotions requires interpretation, which also comes very naturally, but requires a conscious awareness. This book will show you how to do that for yourself. Warnings against emotion in spiritual literature refer to their misuse in this primitive way, and are well deserved as the source of much human suffering.

This leads us to the much more civilized and religiously promoted misuse: repression. Since emotions are both uncomfortable and create trouble, it was naturally discovered that you could: 1) hide them from others that disapproved, 2) distract yourself with some other great pleasure or pain in an attempt to elude and ignore them or, 3) become truly numb. These ingenious methods to “not feel” are as numerous as humans; do you know yours? But all repression ultimately fails because your mind is a thought-and-feeling producing machine. Or if you do become numb, then all of life’s joy goes grey as well. Repression then leads to hidden agendas, manipulation, unresolved issues, elaborate coping mechanisms, addictions and obsessions, or medication. You cannot not feel. Nor would you want to once you find the valuable role emotions play to create well-being.

So what’s the healthy alternative to expression and repression? Address your emotions. (Definition: v. uh-dréss: skillful and expeditious management; ready skill.) Emotions will serve you when you learn to understand their messages. They are signals to guide you to what your body, mind, and/or soul want. But you must interpret the information. Conscious use of emotion involves all the definitions of the word Conscious: aware of one’s own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings; sensitive to something; having the mental faculties fully active; known to oneself; felt; aware of what one is doing.
The basic method for this is similar to meditation. In fact, it is meditation which includes observation of thoughts AND feelings. Since these are detected “inside” and subtler than messages from the 5 senses, it helps to reduce distracting sensory input, sitting still in silence with eyes closed. Focusing on sensations increases awareness. And the mind is encouraged to serve a supporting role; to understand that it is not the originator but the interpreter of these deeper messages.
Despite years of excessive or repressive use of emotion, most people learn to listen to their emotions quickly and easily with a little instruction and reassurance. This is because proper use of emotion is an essential, always-ready part of our natural sensory system. The many techniques of Kundalini Yoga serve to create these conditions. There are techniques to move from repression to safe expression, and to re-awaken sensitivity from numbness, and to build the strength to handle strong or heavy emotions.

I offer courses which share many such techniques, and you can email me for a specific request for your situation.

After years of yoga practice and working as a life coach, I have come to understand that the emotions are a vital part of our body-mind-spirit sensory equipment. Just as your five physical senses serve to navigate your body, you have emotions to explore and understand how life is going for you here on earth. Your emotions are allies and guides, leading you toward feeling Divine amidst the challenges life brings.

Skillfully navigating the dark, yet rich world of feelings brings freedom from early trauma, unresolved issues, nagging doubts, confusion, anxiety and frustration. With awareness, you can gain control over what you are feeling and learn more about what you need to be happy. Think of emotions as the Senses of the Soul, serving your spirit to flourish.

In this series of articles we will help you discover the profound benefits of using emotions skillfully. As with any friend, you can build your relationship to them with some quality time – attention and communication. Start right now!

Sit comfortably and set a timer for 11 minutes. Close your eyes and breathe deeply and slowly. Create a clarity and stability by feeling support by the earth below, then vast and expansive through your mental/ spiritual self above. Shift your attention to emotional sensations. Let any and all feelings flow through your body without resisting or trying to make anything happen. Be in rapport. You will discover that difficult feelings actually ease up when you allow them to just “be.” Equally allow positive feelings. Play with evoking all kinds of emotional sensations by calling on thoughts and memories.

Don’t be surprised if you feel uncomfortable. Keep breathing as you work with your emotions until peace comes. Try asking them what they want you to know. Ask if there is something you can do to feel better. Take note of answers, which may be more of a feeling than a thought. Inhale deeply, and finish your session with the most uplifting thoughts and feelings you can create.

Mastery comes with small steps and repetition. Practice this exercise daily and watch how your life improves. Know that you have taken the first step on the road to learning about your emotions and their relationship to your Soul.